immmmmmim'':^ 



•K 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



ODDDaasflflST 
















^' 






'.^' 


















•^^0^ 



,V ' ^ 




"•% . 



.0^ 




vV 















,0' 



■>'' 






^^. 



^oV 









4q, 






v<^ .. <>. 






o > 



<^^ 




^ ^ 

%■'& 






'^'^0^ ^'^ 



.X o_ 



OUR GREAT 
INHERITANCE 

AN ADDRESS 

BEFORE THE 

Daughters of the American 
Revolution 

Sons of the Revolution 

and the 

Sons of the American 
Revolution 

ON 

FEBRUARY 22nd, 1919 



B^ David J a^e Hill 



National Association 
For Constitutional Government 

716-717 COLORADO BUILDING 

Washington, D. C. 



OUR GREAT 
INHERITANCE 



Mr. President and Compatriots: 

It is the high privilege of patriotic 
men and women in the United States, 
at least once a year, to recall the mem- 
ory of Washington; once again to lift 
up our eyes from the perplexities of 
our national life, to contemplate that 
majestic figure, so stately in its moral 
proportions, so well poised in its im- 
perturbable calm, so high above all 
petty cavils and the rivalries of his 
own and of every time. 

To enjoy such a privilege as this, 
to possess in our annals such a lofty 
and irreproachable character, to whom 
we may come repeatedly for new cour- 
age and new inspiration, is in itself a 
safeguard of liberty. Should a time 
ever come in the shifting scenes of his- 
tory when the American people cease 
to reverence the attributes which dis- 
tinguished and ennobled Washington, 
it will be a period of national degra- 
dation and universal calamity, which 
would foreshadow the completion of 
that moral and intellectual decay which 
has so often threatened the human 
race; and which has been averted only 
by some great crisis in which the lapse 
into forgetfulness and indifference has 
been arrested by the shock of a dread- 
ful catastrophe. 

It is with more than usual interest 
that we turn, at this moment, to con- 
template the great founder of our Re- 
public, without whose courage, self- 
devotion, and constancy it might never 
have existed, because we ourselves . 
2 . 



have, in the last four years, passed 
through a time of trial and testing not 
yet brought to its completion, in which 
the whole future of our nation — per- 
haps even the whole future of civiliza- 
tion — hung upon our decision. 

At first we were very far, indeed, 
from responding to the situation in the 
spirit of Washington. We had be- 
come so immersed in the pursuit of 
our personal interests, so neglectful of 
the great traditions of the past, so un- 
mindful of the price at which our lib- 
erties had been bought and our security 
attained, so regardless of the obligation 
to provide for the common defense, 
that even when a solemn treaty obli- 
gation, made to ourselves as well as to 
others, was violated by the outrage 
upon Belgium, we nursed our neutral- 
ity as if it were a virtue; turned a deaf 
ear to an appeal for at least an expres- 
sion of our disapprobation, coolly wit- 
nessed the murder of our fellow-citi- 
zens on the high seas, when their right 
to life was disputed by the diplomatic 
agent of the assassin in our own cap- 
ital, where he was still received and 
honored; and were preparing to com- 
pound the slaughter of our men, wom- 
en, and children by the payment of a 
money indemnity ; and we were finally 
saved from the permanent degradation 
of our national character only by the 
persistence of the brutal policy of our 
enemy, which was as clearly illegal in 
the beginning as it was intolerable in 
the end. 

Why, it may be asked, should we 
make this confession now? We should 
make it, because it is desirable for our 
posterity to know, that, much as we 
hate bloodshed, we consider a righte- 



ous war always more honorable than 
a shameful peace. We should make 
it, because we have no right once more 
to approach the pure shrine of Wash- 
ington, to honor and praise him as the 
great hero and founder of our Repub- 
lic, until in contrition and penitence we 
have confessed our fault and demand- 
ed pardon for our delinquency. 

In blood, and tears, and deep sacri- 
fice we have, as a people, endeavored 
to expiate that fault. Tens of thou- 
sands of graves in America and in 
France, tens of thousands of saddened 
homes, where American mothers and 
wives mourn an irreparable loss, mark 
the extent of that expiation. Deep as 
our shame has been, O Washington, 
we lift up our faces to thee once more 
today, proud to give assurance that 
thy spirit has not departed from us; 
to tell thee that millions of our sons 
and brothers have crossed the ocean 
to wipe out the stain of our forgetful- 
ness; and that the Republic, though 
menaced from within as well as from 
without, still endures, and still honors, 
in good faith and loyal devotion, thy 
glorious memory! 

In all the years of the past, Mr. 
President and Compatriots, there has 
never been a period when the Ameri- 
can people could not turn with profit 
to the life, and labors, and teachings 
of Washington. The reason for this 
is not to be found merely in his skill 
and success as a general, nor even in 
his decisions as a statesman. It would 
be easy to extract from his writings a 
precious breviary of wise statesman- 
ship; but the life of a nation is too 
vast, too varied, and too complicated 
to be entirely foreseen by any mortal 
4 



mind. Far more useful than any 
casual counsels exalted to the dignity 
of universal maxims is the underlying 
conception of the true nature of the 
state and the nation. It is in Washing- 
ton's firm grasp and faithful advocacy 
of this conception that his real great- 
ness as a framer of national policies 
is to be found. It is, in fact, the em- 
anation of his own brave, just and 
generous personal character as a man. 
Here was the origin of his estimate of 
the essential worth and dignity of a 
free and responsible human being, who 
needs the guarantees of law to secure 
his liberty and to develop his responsi- 
bility. 

In Washington's conception, the na- 
tion is a just and strong union of 
purpose to secure this liberty and to 
bear this responsibility. To him gov- 
ernment involves the idea of the moral 
freedom of the individual citizen, as 
the most precious content of the na- 
tional hfe; but also the responsibility 
of every citizen for the security and 
well-being of the nation. Any govern- 
ment that does not respect and secure 
liberty to the citizen is, in his view, a 
usurpation, ajid will soon become a 
despotism. A person who will not sus- 
tain a government of just and equal 
laws, as a means of securing organized 
liberty, is an enemy of mankind. Ex- 
pressed in a single formula: the right 
to liberty is the true foundation of 
government, and a government of just 
and equal laws is the essential guar- 
antee of liberty. 

This is the basic idea that runs 
through all of Washington's thinking, 
acting and writing. To realize favor- 
able conditions for the existence and 
5 



security of a free, responsible, law- 
abiding human being — that is what 
Washington was always aiming at and 
striving for. 

How was it to be accomplished? 

First of all, by getting rid of arbi- 
trary power based on force, in every 
form ; whether of a monarch, a foreign 
parliament, or any particular single 
class of the population. Here is the 
spirit of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, the primary philosophy of the 
Revolution. But, seeing how, after 
independence had been won, many in- 
dividual citizens were using their free- 
dom selfishly and without honor or re- 
sponsibility, demanding immediate dis- 
charge from their monetary obliga- 
tions, asking for free issues of paper 
money with which to pay their just 
debts, and living without respect to 
law; and how the thirteen states were 
centered upon themselves, unwilling 
to pay their federal taxes, setting up 
their own custom houses at the state 
frontiers, disregarding their treaty ob- 
ligations, and bringing discredit upon 
the whole Confederation, rendering it 
impotent at home and contemptible 
abroad, he saw the necessity for estab- 
lishing a general government under the 
Constitution of the United States; 
which happily saved independence 
from causing the utter ruin of the 
country, which was rapidly becoming 
a disunited and internally hostile group 
of struggling communities, fit to be- 
come the easy prey of the foreign 
powers by which they were still sur- 
rounded. 

I am far from attributing to Wash- 
ington an original or profound politi- 
cal philosophy. His value as a leader 
6 



lay in no scheme of theoretical think- 
ing, but in plain common sense sup- 
ported by public spirit and indomitable 
courage. As masters of political the- 
oi*y, Hamilton and Madison were vast- 
ly his superiors. But Washington was 
the ideal citizen, clear in his apprehen- 
sion of what the rights of a good citi- 
zen are, of the duties that correspond 
to them, and both valiant in the defense 
of his rights and indefatigable in the 
performance of his duties. But, rising 
above even this high standard of citi- 
zenship, he crowned it by a deep and 
watchful solicitude for the well-being 
of the whole countr}% a solicitude that 
was as active and vigilant in the years 
of his retirement as it was faithful in 
the periods of his official responsibil- 
ity. 

Presiding with dignity over the 
Constitutional Convention of 1787, he 
exercised a stimulating influence, and 
yet preserved a becoming reticence. 
Leaving to others, better qualified, as 
he thought, the working out of details, 
he steadily pointed to the great ends to 
be accomplished. 

There was a moment in the course 
of the convention when it was sug- 
gested that it would be well to adapt 
the proposed Constitution to the av- 
erage wishes of the people ; which, of 
course, would take into account the 
very tendencies which it was desirable 
to overcome. Here, for the only time 
during the convention, Washington 
personally intervened. 

"Americans," wrote Gouvemeur 
Morris, in recording this incident, of 
which he was a witness, "let the opin- 
ion then delivered by the greatest and 
7 



best of men be ever present to your 
remembrance. He was collected with- 
in himself. His countenance had more 
than usual solemnity, his eye was fixed, 
and seemed to look into futurity. 'It 
is,' he said, 'too probable that no plan 
we propose will be adopted. Perhaps 
another dreadful conflict is to be sus- 
tained. If to please the people, we of- 
fer what we ourselves disapprove, how 
can we afterwards defend our work? 
Lei us raise a standard to which the 
wise and the honest can repair. The 
event is in the hand of God." 

For a hundred and thirty years the 
"wise and the honest" have repaired 
to that standard. During that long 
period, it has sheltered our liberties 
and made us a great, a prosperous and 
a united people. Without its broad 
provisions for the common defense, 
we could not have taken a successful 
part in the Great War which chal- 
lenged our intervention. Without it, 
indeed, we should not even be a na- 
tion, but a group of conflicting and 
mutually defiant communities; if, in 
fact, we were so fortunate as to have 
escaped reduction to the condition of 
colonial dependencies of the Great 
Powers of Europe, some of which we 
have recently aided by our co-opera- 
tion in preserving from absolute ex- 
tinction. And today, the American 
Republic, honored everywhere where 
honor is esteemed, is the source of in- 
spiration for the most advanced peo- 
ples of four continents; no longer an 
experiment, no longer a junior in the 
family of nations, but actually the old- 
est of the unchanged governments now 
existing upon the earth. 



Looking over this long period, we 
may truly say that wherever the spirit 
of Washington has prevailed, wher- 
ever his principles of national life and 
character have been applied, both at 
home and abroad, there are freedom, 
safety and peace; and wherever they 
have been departed from, there are op- 
pression, danger and strife. 

In the meantime, great constitution- 
al governments have developed, great 
free democracies have come into be- 
ing, in partial imitation of the consti- 
tutional system of the United States. 
France would probably today not be a 
republic if the American Republic had 
not furnished an example. The Brit- 
ish Empire, which now prefers to be 
called the British Commonwealth, 
would not be the great free democracy 
it is if the American Revolution had 
not taught Great Britain how to gov- 
ern her colonies. But the chief lesson 
of all this development is, that civiliz- 
ation has been built up, and has recent- 
ly been rescued, by free nations — free 
nations bound by no covenant, except 
their common love of liberty, of jus- 
tice, and of law. 

What then has been the part played 
by America in this period of progress? 

Inspired by the counsels of Wash- 
ington, we have given our first thought 
to the protection of our own republic- 
an institutions, leaving the rest of the 
world free to follow our example. We 
have avoided needless complication in 
the quarrels and rivalries of other na- 
tions, and have extended a hand of 
protection against invasion and con- 
quest to the younger republics of our 
own continent. As late as 1907, our 



uniform and unswerving policy was 
enunciated at the Second Hague Con- 
ference, when the Convention for Ar- 
bitration was signed, in the following 
words : 

"Nothing contained in this Conven- 
tion shall be so construed as to require 
the United States of America to de- 
part from its traditional policy of not 
intruding upon, interfering with, or 
entangling itself in the political ques- 
tions or policy or internal administra- 
tion of any foreign State; nor shall 
anything contained in the said Con- 
vention be construed to imply a relin- 
quishment by the United States of 
America of its traditional attitude 
toward purely American questions." 

This statement is usually associated 
with the name of Monroe; but the doc- 
trine is that of Washington, and of 
every leading American statesman 
since the foundation of the Republic. 
It is the one settled and permanent 
policy of the country, and has been ac- 
cepted as such by foreign countries. 
The most important element in it is 
not, shall we permit others to meddle 
with our affairs, but shall we in the 
future meddle with the affairs of other 
continents ? 

It is now proposed that the limita- 
tions contained in this statement 
should henceforth be abandoned; that 
we should abruptly and permanently 
break with this honorable and success- 
ful past. We are urged to assume a 
joint trusteeship with other nations 
for regulating, by our own appoint- 
ment, the affairs of all mankind; mak- 
ing ourselves responsible for the peace. 

10 



and harmony, not only of the nations 
with which we are to be associated, but 
of the entire world. 

That we should faithfully perform 
our part in the preservation of peace 
among the nations and in defense of 
the great principles of International 
Law, no patriotic American, I am sure, 
would for a moment doubt. Nor can 
it be assumed that occasions may not 
arise — for one has already arisen — 
when it may become our duty as a na- 
tion to send armies to distant lands, in 
order to suppress a common enemy. 
Such a course, when there is a specific 
reason for it, is fully justified. But 
this does not require our entering into 
an unlimited obligation in all circum- 
stances to assume the protection of dis- 
tant peoples; to enter into their dis- 
putes ; to place our resources at the dis- 
posal of a central authority that may 
at some time be dominated by a com- 
bination of interests adverse to our 
own; to submit to foreign control our 
standards of life, our conditions and 
rewards of labor, and even power over 
our fortunes and our lives. There is 
no good reason why we should com- 
mit our posterity to such unnecessary 
hazards. They might have much to 
lose, and certainly nothing to gain by 
it. We do not need or desire the in- 
tervention of Europe, Asia, or Africa 
in the affairs of our hemisphere. Why 
then should we intervene in the re- 
organization of those continents? 

The American people will. I think, 
consider well before they pledge them- 
selves to participation in future wars, 
and bind their sons and brothers to 
mihtary service in foreign lands, at 

11 



the dictation of any international con- 
clave whatever. And in reaching their 
decision, it should not be forgotten, 
that, in discussing international rela- 
tions, the realities with which we have 
to deal are not plans and theories, 
however attractive and reasonable they 
may seem, but the national interests, 
the economic rivalries, and the racial 
instincts of the peoples to whom these 
plans and theories are to be applied, 

I would not be understood as offer- 
ing offensive criticism of the plan for 
association with other nations to pre- 
serve the peace of the world which 
has been prepared at Paris, and is now 
before the country for its decision. 
There are in it many admirable feat- 
ures; but in its present form there 
are many grave constitutional objec- 
tions to accepting it. The Entente that 
has been formed to suppress German 
imperialism should be continued for 
the defense of law and justice; but, 
in view of complications that I believe 
are certain to arise, I would wish to 
qualify our participation in any com- 
pact by precisely the words that were 
employed in accepting the Hague Con- 
vention in 1899, and again in 1907, 

We must not, in promoting the as- 
piration for universal and permanent 
peace, overlook the concrete experience 
of the nations as recorded in history; 
and it is absurd to assume, that be- 
cause we desire peace, we have a war- 
rant for believing that national and 
racial motives no longer exist. For 
centuries compacts of peace have been 
made and broken, but the peoples have 
remained the same. 



12 



The test is in achievement, and what 
has thus far been actually achieved in 
making peace with Germany? 

In November, 1918, the German 
armies were defeated in the field, and 
an immediate, unconditional surrender 
could have been obtained, with a peace 
signed at Berlin. Three months later, 
after long negotiations by the five 
Great Powers among themselves at 
Paris regarding the permanent recon- 
struction of the world and arrange- 
ments for universal peace, no peace 
has been made, and no definitive terms 
of peace have been presented. In the 
meantime, Germany, rehabilitated 
under what professes to be a demo- 
cratic government, but which includes 
a large proportion of the old element 
of control, the army reorganizing and 
still possessed of arms, with the pros- 
pect of adding millions to the popula- 
tion by the accession of Austria, flings 
the defiance of her seventy million 
people in the face of the Conference at 
Paris, claims exemption from payment 
of indemnities on the ground that the 
terms of peace were agreed upon be- 
fore the armistice, and virtually says 
to the Entente Allies, when their 
armies are largely demobilized : If 
you intend to impose upon us terms to 
which we have not agreed, you will 
have to invade and conquer our coun- 
try! 

And now, when the German menace 
should have become a thing of the 
past, with no prospect of revival, that 
pseudo-republic rises in its potential 
strength to exercise its rehabilitated 
power in the midst of a sea of an- 
archy; with Poland not yet organized, 
13 



Bohemia separated from her kin and 
surrounded by hostile peoples, the new 
Serbia a mere project on the map, Italy- 
undecided and anxious, France fearful 
that she may yet be the ultimate vic- 
tim of the war, Great Britain wishing 
to place the conquered colonies of Ger- 
many in bond for fear of stultifying 
her democracy, and Japan reluctant to 
do likewise lest she compromise her 
expansion. On the other hand, we 
see Turkey still in possession of the 
straits, Russia raising and equipping 
great armies for the destruction of na- 
tionalism and the propagation of uni- 
versal anarchy, and a sympathizer 
with Bolshevism sent by the United 
States to negotiate with the Bolshe- 
visits in the Prince's Island. What 
then is the coming peace to be, and 
when will it be concluded? Who, in 
fact, are the victors? 

I shall not presume to say what 
Washington would think of this pro- 
cedure; but I am confident he would 
regard it as a time for this nation to 
put its trust in itself, and not too much 
in others. I think he would say to us : 
If you wish to be of real use in the 
world, be strong and reserve your 
strength for great decisions. A strong 
America, standing for justice, will be 
most effective when she has made no 
pledges. What she will do should de- 
pend upon the occasion. Let her re- 
main free. Then her voice will be 
heard, and may often prove decisive. 
She will be more potent for good when 
she is not bound than when she is 
loaded with obligations, impoverished 
with debt, and anxious to recover a 
position she has sacrificed and an abun- 
dance she has squandered. After what 
14 



she has done in the Great War, the 
nations will not doubt her capacity for 
self-defense or cease to court her favor 
and approval. 

I do not mean to say that Washing- 
ton would countenance a discontinu- 
ance of our loyal support of the En- 
tente Allies in making a just peace 
with our common enemy, or in mak- 
ing that peace secure. On the con- 
trary, he would think it most dishon- 
orable either to desert them now, or 
to abandon them in the future, or to 
impose upon them terms that would 
be accepted by them with reluctance. 
Least of all would he tolerate an at- 
tempt to deprive them of the means 
of enforcing peace after it is made, 
either on land or sea. What he would, 
perhaps, regard with suspicion would 
be the estabhshment of an imperial 
syndicate to rule the world, and alone 
in the future to impose peace in its 
own way. But the proposal to subject 
the future course of the American 
people to the decisions of European 
nations, with an obligation to receive 
punishment if they were not accepted, 
in addition to taking a part in the 
quarrels and rivalries of these Powers 
in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, 
by becoming a judge and a divider 
over them — that would fill him with 
genuine alarm. 

Whatever future there may be for 
internationalism, it will have no secure 
foundation unless it is built on a firm, 
clear, and permanent conception of na- 
tional strength and integrity. It is 
the weak, the unstable, and the disinte- 
grating nations that are the greatest 
menace to the world's peace. Turkey 

15 



has been for centuries the carcass 
about which the eagles have gathered, 
and the debris of the Ottoman Empire 
in the Balkan Peninsula is the fertile 
seed-plot of modem wars. Russia, de- 
centralized, unorganized, without a 
truly national spirit, a congeries of 
subject peoples suddenly liberated and 
possessing no bond of unity, is today 
the possible prey and easy victim of a 
rehabilitated Germany and a veritable 
sword of Damocles over the head of 
the rest of Europe. 

At such an ill-chosen moment the 
demogogues of our own country are 
proposing a break with our past even 
in our own internal economy; some 
of them are urging upon us a complete 
reconstruction of our economic life by 
the public ownership of our great in- 
dustries under a bureaucratic regime; 
some of them undermining by popular 
decrees our representative form of 
government and our judicial system; 
and all of them, in some form, repudi- 
ating our constitutional guarantees of 
personal rights and restrictions upon 
governmental usurpation of power. 

If Washington could now break the 
silence of the tomb and speak to us 
in that clear, calm tone of caution to 
which he was accustomed, I can im- 
agine him saying to us : What you 
have been able to accomplish as a na- 
tion has been possible, because you 
have possessed the constitutional safe- 
guards you are now invited to throw 
away. You have been able to amass 
the wealth needed to build your navy 
and equip the great army you have 
sent overseas, because you have, in 
the past, encouraged individual enter- 

16 



prise on a large scale; have developed 
your own industries, instead of being 
dependent upon Europe for mechan- 
ical products; and have protected by 
constitutional guarantees the right to 
acquire, possess, enjoy and control pri- 
vate property, which by your industry, 
your economy, your prudence, your 
genius for invention, and above all 
your enterprise, you have created and 
preserved. Were it not for these guar- 
antees, you would be as fearful of 
producing anything of value as the un- 
happy Turk, who dares not seem rich, 
lest the omnipresent tax-gatherer de- 
spoil him; or the still more miserable 
middle-class Russian, who trembles 
for his life, because he has created a 
home, has engaged in a successful 
business, has laid aside something for 
the needs of old age. and therefore 
possesses that which a brutal proletar- 
iat wishes to take away and consume 
in idleness. 

That Washington would be con- 
cerned for justice to all honest men 
and women, and particularly in secur- 
ing a fair chance for every willing 
worker, I do not doubt. That he 
would be deeply impressed by the great 
changes that have occurred in our so- 
cial and economic development since 
his time, is certain. He would com- 
prehend how corporate enterprise, the 
factory system, the growth of great 
cities, the private appropriation of ag- 
ricultural lands, the inflowing tide of 
uninstructed peoples, and the vast 
progress in the mechanical arts, have 
combined to make the twentieth cen- 
tury indifferent from the eighteenth. 
But I cannot imagine that he would 
find in any or all of these changes a 

n 



ground for believing that there should 
be less respect paid to individual lib- 
erty, or less necessity of just and equal 
general laws, or less need for consti- 
tutional limitations upon the usurpa- 
tion of power by any particular class 
of men, and even by the Government 
itself. 

I think what would surprise Wash- 
ington more than anything else that 
has occurred in the last century and a 
quarter, would be the growth in the 
United States of the power of gov- 
ernment over the individual citizen. 
That such power is just and reason- 
able when directed against the tenden- 
cies of private persons and associa- 
tions to injure others, he would un- 
doubtedly be the first to affirm. When 
required by the necessities of the com- 
mon defense, in time of war, he would 
rejoice in the authority the Consti- 
tution grants, to employ all the re- 
sources of the nation, in so far as 
they are really contributory to suc- 
cess, for victory over our enemies; 
and no one could appreciate better 
than Washington the importance of 
this authority to the life of the na- 
tion. What would truly fill him with 
amazement, and even with alarm, 
would be the fact, that, by the Six- 
teenth Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, absolute and 
unlimited power has been placed ir 
the hands of a few hundred men in 
Washington to take from the whole 
population of the nation, even in time 
of peace, any portion of their earnings 
and the proceeds of their business 
they may choose to take, and to use it 
for any purpose they may see fit. Hav- 
ing fought against the incipient abso- 
18 



lutism of a German King of England 
and a Parliament subject to his dicta- 
tion, in a matter relatively so inconse- 
quential as a slight tax on tea, he 
would be astounded that the American 
people had, without protest, and even 
without qualification, consented to a 
form of control over their lives, their 
liberties, and their means of happiness 
more absolute than any monarch of 
modern times has ever presumed to 
assert or demand. 

In view of the ease and freedom 
with which the average official finds 
it possible to expend other people's 
money, when it can be obtained in 
large quantities, how great — he might 
perhaps reflect — must be the confidence 
of the people in the wisdom, the pru- 
dence, and the honor of these few 
hundred men in Washington, of whom 
a simple majority can exercise such 
enormous power. And how wise, hov/ 
just, how prudent, and how virtuous 
must be the electorate that takes upon 
itself the responsibility of choosing a 
government of such omnipotence! 
"Thank God," Washington might well 
exclaim, "that it is still a government 
of the people, by the people, and for 
the people!" 

How deep would be his anxiety if 
there existed any shadow of a doubt 
that it would remain such! What so- 
licitude he would experience, if he 
were told, that in many of our col- 
leges, universities, and law schools 
there are teachers who deny that the 
people possess any natural, inherent, 
and inalienable rights, least of all any 
right of property; and who affirm that 

19 



the only rights which any one may 
claim are those which government 
chooses to grant him. 

Whence, then, Wasliington might 
well inquire, have these contradictions 
of our American philosophy of the 
state had their origin? And the an- 
swer would be : They are derived 
from the absolutist idea of the nature 
of the state against which you fought 
in 1770, the idea of the state's essen- 
tial omnipotence ; an idea brought to 
its logical conclusion in Prussia by the 
Hohenzollern dynasty, proclaimed by 
German professors under state appoint- 
ment, taught to American candidates 
for the doctorate of law in German 
universities, repeated by them in their 
American class-rooms, on the author- 
ity of this high official learning, and 
supported by the cult and propaganda 
of that school of political thinking in- 
itiated by Karl Marx — also imported 
from Germany — which is eager to 
make the state omnipotent, on condi- 
tion that their own class may control 
it. 

Sons and daughters of the Revolu- 
tion, do you realize what a battle is 
yet before you, if you would maintain 
the Republic your forefathers fought 
and bled to establish? The chief dan- 
ger to our country is not from with- 
out, but from within its own borders. 
The real enemy is now within our 
gates, and he is aided and supported 
by the enemy without. 

And what is our defense? 

First of all, we must ourselves com- 
prehend the political philosophy upon 
which our Republic was established; 
and then we must teach it to our chil- 
20 



dren and prepare them to maintain it. 
And what is the basis of that philos- 
ophy? It is that you, and I, and all 
of us, as human beings, have claims to 
just and reasonable treatment which 
are ours because we are human be- 
ings, independently of all legislative 
acts; inherent personal rights, which 
constitute the true foundation of all 
right government; and which, there- 
fore, cannot be the gift of govern- 
ment to us. Our fathers established 
our Republic on that basis, on the 
foundation of the inherent and inalien- 
able "Rights of Man." It was pro- 
claimed in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, erected into a fundamental 
law in the Constitution, and remains 
today our only protection against force, 
violence, and the conspiracy of the un- 
just against our liberties. 

But there is a second form of de- 
fense not less necessary. We require 
the effective organization of the law- 
abiding members of society. We must 
render the red flag of anarchy impos- 
sible anywhere in America. We must 
instantly deport every alien who dis- 
plays it, and intern every native who 
proclaims the principles of anarchy. 

And yet it is not open violence or 
open propaganda from which we have 
the most to fear. The most danger- 
ous enemy of our institutions is to be 
found in the silent, insidious, indirect 
assaults upon our fundamental law; 
which, once abolished, would cause the 
demolition of the whole structure of 
our Republic. 

Its enemies know this, and they 

strike at a vital part. There has been 

proposed a "Gateway Amendment" — 
21 



a most appropriate name — by which, 
if adopted, means would be secured 
of driving out of the Constitution 
of the United States every guar- 
antee, and forcing into it every decree, 
which might suit the purpose of those 
who propose it. What their main pur- 
pose is does not remain a secret. Its 
advocates affirm their wish — and some 
of them occupy high pubHc office — that 
any judge who declares any act un- 
constitutional should be immediately 
displaced from office. This blow is 
struck at the Constitution, because, as 
it stands, it is a law which legislators 
must obey, and establishes legal rights 
which they must respect. 

The real purpose of those who make 
this proposal, which claims to be al- 
ready supported by several millions of 
voters, is further revealed by their 
sympathetic association, in public 
meetings, recently held in Washington, 
with the open apologists and advocates 
of Russian Bolshevism. The peril 
to constitutional government is far 
deeper and more widespread than the 
general public yet imagines ; and it will 
require a national awakening, similar 
to that which aroused this country to 
its sense of duty in the Great War, be- 
fore the situation is adequately under- 
stood. 

It is for you, and for me, and for 
all true Americans, my Compatriots, 
to defend what our fathers have trans- 
mitted to us. I am confident, that 
when that duty is fuly realized, we 
shall not fail to perform our part. But 
we should realize it now. If civiliza- 
tion is not to go down in ignominy, we 
must first of all set and keep our own 

22 



house in order. We must enlighten 
our generation regarding the true 
meaning of constitutional liberty, re- 
main as a nation strong and ever 
ready for our own defense, and in our 
promises to preserve the peace of the 
world make no engagements which we 
cannot keep. 

Our plain duty lies immediately be- 
fore us; and we should not be cele- 
brating, we should be desecrating, this 
anniversary, if we forgot it. Our as- 
sociated societies should see to it, that, 
on Septhember 17th, the date on which 
Washington, as President of the Con- 
stitutional Convention of 1787, placed 
his signature to the draft of the Con- 
stitution, there shall be, in every vil- 
lage and hamlet of this country, a cele- 
bration of that event, with public ad- 
dresses explaining its significance. This 
custom, suggested, and in part put in 
practice, by one at least of the associ- 
ated societies represented here today, 
should be regarded as even more im- 
portant than the observance of the an- 
niversary of Independence; for "Con- 
stitution Day" marks the crowning 
achievement of the American Revolu- 
tion, the consolidation of its purpose, 
the realization of its aspirations, and 
the lasting glory of the great work of 
Washington — the dawn of a new era 
in the history and the destiny of man- 
kind. And it remains for us, my Com- 
patriots, in this moment of emergency, 
to preserve, for ourselves and our pos- 
terity, this great inheritance. 



23 



National Association 

for 

Constitutional Government 

716-17 COLOKADO BUILDING 
WASHINGTON. D. C. 



The Aims of the Association ^ 



It is the object of the Association to propa- 
gate a wider and more accurate knowledge oi 
the Constitution of the United States, and of 
the distinctive features of constitutional gov- 
ernment as conceived by the founders of the 
Republic; to inculcate an intelligent and genu- 
ine respect for the organic law of the land; to 
bring the minds of the people to a realization 
of the vital necessity of preserving it unim- 
paired, and particularly in respect to its broad 
limitations upon the legislative power and its 
guarantees of the fundamental rights of life, 
liberty, and property; to oppose attempted 
changes in it which tend to destroy or impair 
the efficacy of those guarantees, or which are 
not founded upon the mature consideration 
and deliberate choice of the people as a whole; 
and to this end, to publish and circulate appro- 
priate literature, to hold public and corporate 
meetings, to institute lectures and other public 
addresses, to establish local centers or 
branches, and generally to promote the fore- 
going objects by such means as shall from time 
to time be agreed upon by the Association or 
by its governing bodies. 

Needs. 

To render the Association an efficient means 
of accomplishing its purpose, there is need, 
first, of adequate financial support in order 
that it may print and circulate desirable liter- 
ature, and second, of an extended membership 
which will be able to carry its influence into 
every community. 

As the aim of the Association is patriotic 
rather than partisan, it feels warranted in ap- 
pealing to all citizens who value the institu- 
tions inherited from our fathers. 

Membership. 
Citizens of the United States and those who 
have declared their intention to become such 
shall be eligible to membership in the Associa- 
tion. 

Annual Membership $ 2.00 

Sustaining Membership 5.00 

Life Membership 100.00 

Membership entitles the holder to "The Con- 
stitutional" Review," a valuable quarterly pub- 
lished by the Association. 

If you cannot afford to be a member, send 
us your name and address as a Friend of the 
Constitution. 

24 II S 4 



)*.i^:.'. -> 

















'■ 4^' 



"x"' .-^ 



'"^^^ 



V* » 1 • »' < 







* .0-' 



>' 



-I. ♦ 



iW 



•A 



■^ 






•^ .^'•. ^^k< 



y ... v:^ "• ^-^^ 



,5"^ * Vvt:?;?^ ■ 



^0 



;#■■;> .(.^ *, 















<^ 



->' 












^. 



':j^<>- 



'^, 



*VBRTE100KB[NDS^G 

JAN 1989, . 

GraaiviUe, PA 



^. 



o^ 



♦ r\ 




iii.i'iV.,'|''\:;!!i;il'\^5: 






m 



i;;;!;;i;i;!!''ii!i;;i'ii|lj.i^ 






